Danger ahead on the murky road from Corinthians to Upton Park

What a day for West Ham United,' said an excited Alan Pardew after swooping for two of the most sought-after talents in the game. 'We've just become a feeder club.'

Actually, he didn't say the last bit because not many managers would be peering too closely at such a gift horse, although the club's media spokesman did rather give the game away. 'There is no way West Ham would act as a feeder club for others,' Phil Hall said. 'Of course, if we were offered major fees for the players we would have to consider it - as we would with anyone else."

The assumption that Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano have simply been parked at Upton Park for a season or so until the real big-money move materialises might have been challenged by news that their secretive owners are attempting a takeover of West Ham, although, then again, the takeover talk could be a smokescreen with obfuscation the desired effect.

The only thing that is clear in what appears a deliberately opaque arrangement is that the Argentina duo do not belong to West Ham in the way all their other players do. Sell Dean Ashton, for instance, and the club can bank the profit. Move on Tevez or Mascherano and Media Sports Investments will handle the sale and the proceeds.

Perhaps we should be relaxed about this. The system is common in South America and not unknown in Africa. As any professional player can objectively be described as and sometimes must feel like a piece of meat for sale, does it matter whether the transaction is brokered by a butcher, a baker or a candlestick-maker?

'It's new to us,' said Sky Andrew, one of the few prominent agents whose name does not appear in the now familiar Uncle Tom Cobley chorus of advisers, fixers and speculators associated with West Ham's glorious day. 'But it works in other parts of the world and perhaps it is the way to go.'

Not piecemeal it isn't. If all the players in the league decided to throw off the shackles of club registration to own and represent themselves, hiring themselves out to the highest bidders in a form of draft system, but retaining control over their freedom of movement after specified periods, power and prestige would drain from the clubs, who would become little more than franchises or team names, and the transfer system would die an unmourned death.

You could catch a glimpse of this possible future in the West Ham deal. With no selling club to worry about, the players and their representatives were able to conclude a (most likely) short...#8209;term deal based on wages alone. With no significant investment in the form of a transfer fee, the club are not unduly concerned by the open-ended nature of the arrangement. It's win all round.

Except that Utopia is not quite upon us yet. For one thing there was a selling club. Corinthians are far from happy about MSI hawking their star players around Europe and the club's president flew to London last week in a vain attempt to exert a degree of control over the sale.

Alberto Dualib's objections were nullified by the amount of control his club had allowed MSI, but West Ham fans ought to be worried when they hear their club described as similar in potential to Corinthians. The success MSI bought in South America was short...#8209;term and Corinthians have been subject of a money-laundering investigation in Brazil.

In England, bookmakers are offering 2-1 that Tevez starts next season with Chelsea. Perhaps they are aware that in May, before appearing for Argentina in the World Cup and while he was a Corinthians player, this is what Tevez had to say about where he might end up: 'Chelsea intend to take me. It is difficult to distance myself from them because they have shown a lot of affection towards me and my family.'

This might be water under Stamford Bridge now. After all, Tevez also turned up for a Corinthians press conference wearing a Manchester United shirt, but where players' registrations and movements are controlled by individuals, with some clubs allowed in the loop and some kept out of it or put off by it, there will always be suspicions of done deals and ulterior motives. This is not to say that clubs do it better, just that the two systems cannot exist side by side.

It has to be one or the other, unless you want to believe that little West Ham, who weren't even looking, have just pipped some of the biggest clubs in Europe for two of the most sought-after talents in the game.

Mistakes, the FA's made a few, but then Sven is too costly to mention

So, Brian Barwick refuses to accept that Sven-Goran Eriksson was an expensive mistake, even though the unemployed Swede is still picking up his wages in a wheelbarrow as a result of the massively overgenerous renegotiation of his contract at the time he was caught talking to Chelsea.

That was not Barwick's fault, though over a year into his reign it is clear the FA's chief executive is not really the gruff, tough, straight-talking northerner the game thought and hoped it would be getting. 'The World Cup was disappointing, but Sven was just as disappointed as everyone else,' was about as far as Barwick would go on the subject.

As insults to the intelligence go, this is almost on a par with flying out to Lisbon to doorstep the manager of Portugal then claiming Steve McClaren was first choice for England all along. Quite clearly, if Eriksson is still on the FA payroll at £5million a year until the year 2008 or the conclusion of the most unhurried job search since Andy Capp last perused the situations vacant, his disappointment at England's failure is quantifiably different than everyone else's. If Sven was that gutted he could always waive the remainder of his contract, not that he is under any obligation to do so. As Robert Redford once said of Hollywood dosh, if you are lucky enough to be offered stupid money it would be even more stupid to turn it down.

But, by any definition, Eriksson was, and still is, expensive, which must mean Barwick and the FA are objecting to the word mistake. That is not only gallant and honourable it is correct, for Eriksson was not a mistake. He was a well qualified and respected coach hired for the right reasons at a salary that was generous, though not ruinous. He was not as good as everyone thought he would be, but among England managers he is scarcely alone in that. The expensive mistake came later, when the FA believed they might lose their man to Chelsea, and offered him a contract extension at a vastly increased salary instead of waiting to see how England fared in Euro 2004.

After that tournament Eriksson did not look such a genius, and, by the time his dalliance with Faria Alam brought Mark Palios down, the FA would have gladly offloaded him to Chelsea, but they were stuck with him for another four years. That was a big mistake. And an expensive one. Or as Barwick would say: 'It's a disappointment. But we're just as disappointed as everyone else.'

Toff and the tough are a perfect pair

Of course Zara Phillips should be in with a shout for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year Award. What possible grounds are there for discounting her?

Her mother's 700 acres in Gloucestershire, complete with Olympic-standard eventing course? Don't think so. Ms Phillips (below) might be luckier than most in what she gained from her parents, but you could say the same about Frank Lampard or Jamie Redknapp. The whole question of sporting talent is a bit of a genetic lottery in any case. What did Wayne Rooney or Steven Gerrard do to deserve their ability to play football except be born with it?

Eventing is a Mickey Mouse sport that requires more money than skill and the horse does all the work anyway? Er, hello? One of Phillips' friends was killed while competing last month.

It is true that eventing is not much of a spectator sport, though neither are rugby union or cricket unless you catch them on a good day. And we are only talking about an outdated and pretty much unloved TV award in any case, it's not as if anyone really cares who Gary Lineker gets to fawn over.

Phillips does seem to have a personality and, unlike the vast majority of British sportspeople over the past year, she has actually won something. So she counts. So does Gerrard, who before his World Cup disappointments and oh-so controversial book revelations played a major part in winning a memorable FA Cup final.

But voters and counters need to be wary of history repeating itself. If Phillips is to win, it might be better to have comedian-cum-channel-swimmer David Walliams in second place. Because, contrary to popular supposition, it was not Princess Anne winning the award in 1971 that made the occasion look ridiculous. It was George Best coming second.